Farewell to rally supremo Stuart Turner

1. 1965 Monte Carlo Rally
Stuart Turner, BMC competitions chief from 1961, rated the drive by Timo Mäkinen in the Mini Cooper S as among the greatest he witnessed. Co-driven by Paul Easter, above, left, Mäkinen picked his way through atrocious snow and ice to take a second consecutive Monte win for the Mini, as the first of only 35 finishers from 237 starters. “The question must be ‘How did a Mini manage to win?’” concluded Motor Sport’s report. “The answer is simply the skill of the driver and co-driver, the brilliant organisation of the BMC team, the excellence of the car’s design, the skill of the mechanics that built it and serviced it, and lastly the money that BMC were prepared to spend in order to reap the publicity that comes when you win the Monte.”

2. 1960 RAC Rally
Turner, above, right, cut his teeth as a navigator, co-driving Ron Gouldbourn to the 1958 British Rally Championship. But his big achievement as a competitor came in 1960 beside Erik Carlsson, above, left, for the first of the Swede’s three consecutive RAC Rally wins. “The Saab 96 was much better than its competitors over those gravel roads,” Carlsson told Motor Sport in 2004. “And I was used to going flat-out over them. The toughest section was getting through London to the timed test at Brands Hatch on time. Stuart was shouting for me to go through red lights!”

3. 1964 Monte Carlo Rally
The win that put the Mini on the map. Paddy Hopkirk’s victory, with co-driver Henry Liddon, made the Irishman a household name. Telegrams followed from the prime minister and The Beatles, while Paddy and 33 EJB made a star appearance on Sunday Night at the London Palladium with Bruce Forsyth. “Stuart Turner was a good team boss: constantly looking for the lateral thought and fresh idea,” Hopkirk told Motor Sport in 2009. “He’d ring you up in the middle of the night: ‘Why don’t we try those tyres for that stage?’”

4. 1970 London to Mexico World Cup Rally
Here was Turner’s other great promotional coup, this time for the Ford Escort. The 16,000-mile event started at Wembley on April 19, with around 100 crews travelling south to Lisbon. Following the Atlantic crossing, the South American leg started in Rio and finished in Mexico on May 27 – just in time for the World Cup. Turner later admitted victory for Hannu Mikkola and Gunnar Palm saved his bacon, given the sorry extent of his burst budget…

5. 1976 RAC Rally
Turner had been somewhat dismissive of British rally drivers, so perhaps Roger Clark, above, had a point to prove when he won the RAC for a second time in 1976 (his first was in ’72). Co-driven by Stuart Pegg, Clark’s Cossack-sponsored Mk2 Escort RS1800 prevailed after Pentti Airikkala’s Ford – running under protest after checking in late to a time control – broke its clutch. Until Colin McRae came of age in the early 1990s, Clark stood tall as Britain’s only WRC event winner.